Iran Anticipates Technical Nuclear Meeting After IAEA Talks

A seni­or Ir­a­ni­an dip­lo­mat on Tues­day said tech­nic­al spe­cial­ists from his coun­try would speak with coun­ter­parts from six gov­ern­ments after Tehran con­fers sep­ar­ately with a U.N. agency on po­ten­tially clear­ing the way for a stalled nuc­le­ar probe, IT­AR-Tass re­por­ted.

Ir­a­ni­an Deputy For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­bas Araq­chi said either Vi­enna or Geneva would likely host the ex­pert-level talks, where Ir­an would con­fer with the five per­man­ent U.N. Se­cur­ity Coun­cil mem­ber na­tions and Ger­many over de­tails for a pos­sible plan to de­fuse in­ter­na­tion­al ten­sions over Tehran’s nuc­le­ar pro­gram.

The meet­ing’s pre­cise tim­ing re­mains un­de­cided, Araq­chi said on Monday in com­ments re­por­ted by state-run Press TV. However, a seni­or U.S. of­fi­cial re­cently told re­port­ers the ex­pert meet­ing would take place be­fore Nov. 7, when dip­lo­mats from Ir­an and the so-called “P-5+1” na­tions are slated to be­gin two days of polit­ic­al dis­cus­sions on the dis­pute. The lat­ter gath­er­ing would fol­low up on a Oct. 16-17 mul­ti­lat­er­al meet­ing in Geneva.

Ir­an in­sists its atom­ic ef­fort is peace­ful, but West­ern powers be­lieve it is geared to­ward de­vel­op­ment of a nuc­le­ar-bomb cap­ab­il­ity.

Araq­chi said the ex­pert-level talks would take place after Ir­a­ni­an dip­lo­mats meet with coun­ter­parts from the In­ter­na­tion­al Atom­ic En­ergy Agency, which wants to in­vest­ig­ate signs that the Middle East­ern na­tion once may have en­gaged in sci­entif­ic activ­it­ies rel­ev­ant to atom­ic-arms de­vel­op­ment. The IAEA meet­ing is sched­uled for Oct. 28-29, Ir­an’s Fars News Agency quoted the Ir­a­ni­an dip­lo­mat as say­ing on Tues­day.

Mean­while, a top Ir­a­ni­an nuc­le­ar of­fi­cial said his na­tion plans in three months to be­gin pro­du­cing urani­um ox­ide fuel for use in its Bushehr nuc­le­ar power plant, the state-run Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic News Agency re­por­ted. To date, the atom­ic fa­cil­ity has op­er­ated with fuel provided by Rus­sia.

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HAD BEGUN TO PUBLICLY CRITICIZE TRUMP

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NOT ILLEGAL, BUT MUST BE FORWARDED TO WORK ACCOUNTS

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SAYS CONTACTS WERE “BENIGN”

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